Category Archives: attitude & action

Oct5

Garden Remedies

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I love the life and sustainability that an organic garden brings.  Health, wellness, goodness, and beauty prevail!  As the autumn mornings get crisper,  my herbs and tomatoes still produce.  My garden plants will thrive until old man frost appears.  Deanna Greens and Garden Art has been existence for over 7 years now.  Some of Dean and I’s dreams have come true.  The love of the earth and gardening came alive in me.  “It takes some presumption to cut into the earth and to reshape and redefine – to alter the natural course of things, to commit to having planted a seed, to start a path with no idea, really, where it will lead,” writes Dominique Browning.  More dreams opened up.  This author continues “Gardening has to be as much about contemplation as it is about tilling and toiling.  Mental toiling, perhaps…turning things over, quietly thinking, in a place that gives you a peaceful corner for just a moment or two.”  Gardening has brought a peace to my heart.  And “It dawned on me:  I had tended that garden in great, lavish, loving strokes. It had given me quiet, steady, demanding, and undemanding seasons of pleasure.  I took care of the garden, then the garden took care of me.” ~ Dominique Browning. 

My garden has taken care of heart matters as well as health matters.  I received the most interesting report from my eye physician this week.  He said he could tell I eat lots of green, leafy veggies by the photo taken of the inside of my eyes.  Doc says my peepers are in excellent health, just the lens are getting older with age.  A stronger lens for my glasses are ordered.  According to https://yoursightmatters.com/greens-such-as-kale-good-for-eyesight/ “Green, leafy vegetables, such as kale and spinach, are good for eyesight and preventing age-related eye diseases, including cataracts and macular degeneration. Greens contain cartenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthin, which promote vision and the health of the retina.”  Whatever I do not grow, I buy organic wherever able.  Just eating as much leafy greens and veggies as possible, which means adding to the smoothies and omelets, using veggie-based pasta and riced cauliflower, and spooning fresh and dried herbs into my recipes.  Yes, my garden sustains me.

Sep17

A Labor of Love

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Bit by bit we are making headway on the entryways to our 1940’s home.  Last month it was our front door.  It is a nifty turquoise color, a welcome to anyone in our St. Charles, Missouri neighborhood.  This afternoon my hubby, Dean was scrapping, glazing, and priming one of the windows in the living room of Deanna’s Cottage.  He will paint the frame white next week.  And we have 8 more windows to go.  It is a labor of love!

Along with cherry tomatoes I picked my Genovese and Tai basils on Friday evening at the screenhouse/greenhouse located on Boone Hollow Farm in Defiance.  On Sunday the Genovese variety made some delicious pesto.  I learned if you blanch the basil in boiling water for 5 seconds and immediately put into an ice bath it seals the bright green color.  Drain and squeeze the water from the basil and add to the food processor with olive oil, walnuts, garlic, and parmesan cheese. For two half- pint jars of pesto, I used 8 cups of basil leaves.  The Tai basil will be used for seasoning a chicken-veggie stir fry and riced cauliflower bowl this week. Again, a labor of love!

Aug25

Updates At Deanna’s Cottage

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Summer allows for household projects to continue.  Last weekend I found an antique corner dresser that goes perfectly in the guest bedroom.  Dean surprised me and brought it home this week.  And what a perfect day on Saturday this late August weekend, sunny with a slight breeze and temps around 80.  Fresh paint to the front door and frame has been applied at Deanna’s Cottage.  The door color is Sherwin William’s “nifty turquoise”.  It stopped the postman for a chat while delivering the mail on Saturday, and one of the church goers at the little church next door “loves it”.  According to Kristin Schell in her book A Turquoise Table, this color attracts.  We hope the color to be a positive way to connect with the people of our St. Charles neighborhood.  Eventually the front porch and window metal awnings will be stripped and repainted the color “natural choice” to match the door frame.  We will go with a powered application as latex peels on metal.  The final touch to the front entry will be a new screen door, an old-fashioned wooden one would be awesome.  And more to come with a couple of Adirondack wooden chairs on a pebble patio to relax in and welcome the neighbors.

 

Aug10

Summer Projects Heat Up

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Missouri’s summer heats up in August.  It started on the cooler side, but it is full-blown dripping hot now.  The humidity does it, zaps the energy out of me.  I am taking a couple of hours this afternoon in the air-conditioned cottage to reenergize myself.  This summer I have managed to get a walk in every day while at work.  I found a quiet, shady alley that provides some refuge from the madness in the middle of my day.  Then flowers and gardening are my evening and weekend therapy.  The blooms are flourishing.

This year Dean and I’s spare summer weekends are focused on repainting the window and door frames of our St. Charles cottage.  Of course with a house that is 80 years old, projects are many.  There is multiple layers of paint to sand down, so we get a smooth, clean coat of paint. We have found 3 layers with the front door frame and headboard.  A coat of primer will go on the frame and headboard this evening, with the final white paint another “free” weekend.  Then the front door is next.  “Nifty turquoise” is the color of choice.  Read The Turquoise Table by Kristin Schell to know why I picked this color.  Stay tuned for another post to follow with a picture of our finished project.

Jun23

The Wild & Cultivated Meet

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I awoke at 6:30am this morning.  I saw some sunlight peeping through the window blinds.  Actual sun after several days of rain.  Checking the sky, a front of clouds is slowly moving from the southwest.  Rain on its way once again.  I think I can manage to get to the farm 30 minutes away to check my garden bed in the greenhouse/screenhouse before the rain starts.  I was hoping the county highway was open, no flood waters to prevent my route to Boone Hollow Farm.  I stole the opportunity by myself as Dean was attending to his son’s dogs and house, and will be home sometime late morn.  I left Dean a note on the table just in case he beat me back to the cottage.

I arrived to an overgrown gravel road. No mowing had been done for a couple of weeks. Too wet to mow. And the small creek was swollen and flowing over the rocks, so I parked right near the county highway, and walked into the farm. My sandaled feet relished the coolness of the fresh rain water in the creek. The walk up the gravel road and hill to the greenhouse was sopping wet, quite muddy. The arugula and leaf lettuces are wildly overgrown; bolting, flowering, and forming their seed pods. My herbs have finally taken off with the summer heat and humidity. The cherry tomato plants are doing well, a couple have had their tops nibbled off by the deer or coyotes.  Plenty more started forming their little yellow blooms, the fruit to follow soon.  This morning the wild and cultivated meet together at Deanna’s Cottage …

Culivated, Wild, & Somewhere In Between Blooms

Jun21

The First Summer Storm

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The summer solstice came and went without my celebration.  I am sure the earth still celebrated!  Too busy I would say.  Yes, I need to slow down.  Family engagements and work obligations continue to press me of my time, focus, and energy.  Simply watering the potted plants or making a light, summer dinner is a chore. I have not stopped long enough to smell the roses or savor the flavors of summer.  I took the day off today.  Had to get some reprieve from the madness, gather my thoughts.  Nothing like an upset stomach and headache to slow you down.  Every year it is like this just before vacation finishing up projects at work, home and yard chores, making sure all the travel details are together.  The air was unsettled this morning when I went out to water the potted perennials in the back yard.  Something brewing.  The clouds kept rolling in. Kind of like my recent hectic days building up.

I had no groceries in the house as we have been house and pet sitting this past week for two vacationing family households.  I thought I would beat the eminent storm.  It was like night by the time I gathered my $30 worth of protein and veggies into the Jeep.  Big wet drops started to hit the pavement and my bare arms and sandaled feet.  I managed to get to the cottage before the dark clouds totally let loose. Our first summer storm.  How refreshing.  I read Ann Voskamp’s timely words, “A soul does not work without a sabbath…Be still and know God…and not forget who you are.”  There was a time in my life when I forgot who I was.  And these memories too have preyed my mind these recent days.  This vacation will be good for me.  For Dean, too.  Different scenery, a fresh view.  I think a month-long vacation or sabbatical will be in 2020.  Brewing for my next season in life …

 

May30

Greens, Greens, and More Greens

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We were unable to get to our greenhouse last week due to weekend travels and heavy rain storms, including a tornado touchdown just 3 miles from Boone Hollow Farm where our greenhouse sets.  Dean and I finally were able to get out there this mild late spring evening. Gorgeous green and peace surrounded us while we worked for an hour before sundown.  Dean mowed the grass of our 1/4-acre plot.  I cut flowers and picked the greens.
The seeds sowed late March have been very prolific. Greens, greens, and more greens. Arugula, soft leaf lettuce, and mizuna mustard greens. Dean and I cannot personally consume it all, so we are sharing the abundance with family, friends, and co-workers this growing season. The greens bolted with all the sunshine and warmer days, so I pinched those new buds off.  A couple of weeks ago voluntary cherry tomato plants came close to being plucked and pitched into the weed pile outside of the greenhouse.  I decided to have mercy on them and transplanted them into the huge tub of compost that sets on the edge of our 1/4-acre plot. Look, a whole nursery of them! All the rain and sunshine has done wonders.  I will cage them anticipating a fruitful season for them as well.

 

Mar28

First Sowing

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I put on my rain boots anticipating a muddy walk to the greenhouse at Boone Hollow Farm.  Sure enough the storms we received earlier in the week produced quite a bit of rain, and the creek beds were full.  Dean and I parked near the barn, gathered our gardening gear, jumped across the rain-filled ditch, and walked up the hill to our 9-month greenhouse/screenhouse.  We had not been there all winter season as it was too frigid cold for 3 solid months, a true Missouri winter like I remember years past.  And unlike last year where it drug on for 5 months!

Spring has arrived in Missouri!  The frogs croak and birds tweet in harmony making an evening song of peace!  What a welcome greeting to Dean and I!  I love gardening.  Not the exact science-type gardening.  Care-free and whimsical like.  There is work involved, but less so with a bed of organic soil inside the screenhouse side of our structure.  We pulled old tomato vines and prepped the soil.  It turned up nicely, loose but a little dry.  We had enough snow and winter rains to keep the soil moist even without being in direct exposure. We watered the soil with the rain/snow water from our barrel just outside the structure.  And then the first sowing.  We made 11 rows altogether.  I sowed 8 rows of greens seeds.  My favorite, arugula, and then various lettuces.  We are trying a oriental variety this year.  The other 3 rows are beets.  My first stab at growing these, too.  As an apprentice with EarthDance Farms, I learned to love this root vegetable, greens and all.

Next weekend the herbs will be sown as well as zinnias, forget-me-nots, black-eye susans, and wildflowers at the farm along with the cottage gardens.  The evening drive back from the greenhouse was lovely, a longer drive to the cottage than our other house.  We will make every trip to the countryside count.  Savoring the frog and bird chorus, smelling the blossoms along the strolls at Boone Hollow Farm, and harvesting delicious organic vegetables, herbs, and flowers for our dinner table.  And we trust our God and Mother Nature for plenty to share!

Feb15

Winter’s Warmth

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Ice hit the concrete sidewalks and streets last Sunday morning, like many other wintry mornings in Missouri.  Looking outside the red twig dogwood glistened.  Dean and I waited a bit for temperatures to increase, and then managed to get to church.  It is an oxymoron, winter’s warmth.  It is what winter does for us.  Brings us indoors after weathering the cold, ice, and snow.  Much like life.  The warmth of home lures us back to comfort and simplicity. “Sitting inside the warm, pleasant kitchen while icy rain beat against the window, I felt the wordless contentment of a horse in a stable or a wren in a birdhouse,” Gretchen Rubin writes.  Another author Dominique Browning contemplates, “the banal moments of the day are the most seductive to me. It is in the lighting of a fire on a cold morning, or in the pouring of wine and the pulling up of chairs to read together at the end of an afternoon of errands, that love really exerts its magic.” 

I miss a fireplace or wood stove to snuggle to in our little cottage, but have little niches in every room of our 4-room dwelling that seduce me.  My favorite room is the kitchen.  “So let’s dish out saucy praise for the place of crazy salads, spicy endearments, whispering souffles, sweetmeats, tender loins, and sticky fingers. That whirring, blending, mixed-up, soul-stirring, juice-dripping, hot-hearted room (the kitchen),” Dominique Browning writes in her book Slow Love.  Kind of spicy, you say.  That is what cooking in the kitchen does for my heart.  Another weekend snow has developed this afternoon.  Mini cheese-stuffed meatloaves, sweet potatoes, and banana-oat bread will grace our table this evening.  Tomorrow I will chop fresh veggies to saute with Italian sausage for Italian stone soup accompanied with fresh-from-the-oven bread sticks.  A casserole dish of homemade mac & cheese with a bowl of buttered edamame will be Sunday’s dinner.

I have plenty of library books to peruse and a jigsaw puzzle to piece together for this long weekend of winter warmth.  Besides Dean and I have each other to keep the fire going …

 

Jan12

Winter Hideaway

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The weather people have been telling us about this big winter storm coming to our region by the weekend. Amazing how they can view the weather patterns over the ocean and predict conditions 5 days out and 2,000 miles away.  Sleet, ice, and snow in that order.  Well, they are right about a winter storm.  Although snowflakes started a couple of hours ahead of their initial timeline, and the precipitation is snow rather than sleet.  Too cold for sleet and ice.  Thank God! But much more snow than first thought, now close to a foot by the end of the storm.

I am in the comforts of my home, and no plans to go out this weekend. Church may not be attended on Sunday.  Much depends on the city’s plowing services.  Just heard one go by. The neighbor boy cleared the walking path to the street late afternoon yesterday, and my Dean cleared it again this afternoon. We are ready if we had to go out.

So home equals comfort, the warmth of good food, robes, blankies, and candles. We went grocery shopping a couple of evenings ago based on the forecast, along with many others by the long checkout lines. Freshly baked orange-cranberry scones for breakfast, the buttery aroma enveloped our home. And then homemade chicken veggie soup for lunch. Relaxing this afternoon, so leftovers will do for dinner tonight.  A veggie lasagna will be made for Sunday dinner. A couple of library books at hand, a decorating one caught my fancy today, Cozy Minimalist Home.  I am writing with the warming orange flicker of the candlelight nearby.  The song birds are feeding outside the window before tucking in for the night. At this moment I would not trade this to a secluded sunny beach.  See how many more snow days before I change my mind!  Right now, all is good!